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College is a busy time for student-athletes, and balancing academics with athletics is known to be a challenge. And while all sports involve year-round training, tennis is somewhat unique in that there are competition periods in both the fall and the spring.

So... what should an incoming freshman expect? We put the following question to our panel of coaches:

Q) Can you quantify the number of hours that players spend on tennis each week? What times of year are the busiest?

Quality of time can be more important than quantity of time. Sometimes it is not the time you have - but what you do with the time available. Our team has done well balancing academics and athletics. As a team we achieved a team GPA of 3.6 with 75% of the team making the Dean's list. Almost all of our matches are scheduled for the weekend to avoid missed class time. Training/practice time is also set to avoid conflict with class time.

Sacrifice is an adjustment freshmen might face. Budgeting time to accomodate academics and athletics could mean the sacrifice of some social activities that players enjoyed in high school. Developing new and better habits allows many student-athletes the opportunity to be successful on campus. Typical team schedule involves strength training for one hour/twice a week plus an on-court team practice for 2-3 hours/ 4-6 days per week. The NCAA sets a max of 20 hours per week for Division I and requires one day off every seven. Some weeks we have two matches which dictates that we only hold a team practice on four days that week.

Full training is held September and October with reduced time in November and December. Mid-January we resume full training until the end of April. We are allowed 25 dates of competition, and we hold twenty of those in the spring semester.